How My Heart Behaves
by lucklessdreamer
Summary: When Dan hears Blair has been in an accident, his entire world tilts off its axis. Dan/Blair. Spoilers for what's next.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Spoilers abound below! I've worked a few of the spoilers I've heard floating around the interwebs into a story below and put my own twist on them. I know this is not how the show is going to play out, but in my little fantasy world, this is how things should go. This starts right where Gossip Girl left off. It was running a little long, so I split it into two parts. Part two should be up within the next day or so. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

-x-

When Dan hears Blair has been in an accident, his entire world tilts of its axis.

Time ceases to exist as he travels to the hospital with Serena and awaits Blair's prognosis. Seconds melt into minutes and minutes flash into hours.

When he is finally able to see her, he's not sure how long he has been waiting. It feels like an eternity, but he's certain he has not breathed since he heard, so it couldn't possibly be that long.

He expects the world to right itself once he sees her.

It doesn't.

Blair is swallowed up by her small hospital bed with tubes zigzagging over her body. Her hair is matted and her face is pale, marred by cuts and bruises. He's never seen her this way – never seen her look so _weak_. Blair Waldorf is many things, but weak is never one of them. So, to see her this way, catches him off-guard. And in this new topsy-turvy world of his, it makes him sway and struggle to move his feet closer to her.

Slowly, he makes his way to her, nearly tiptoeing over the tile floors. The humming and beeping of the machines around them provide a soundtrack as he falls to the stool at her bedside and carefully places his hand over hers.

Her eyes flutter open and he lets out the breath he's been holding in.

It takes her a few minutes to adjust to the bright lights and the unfamiliar location, but soon enough, her eyes focus on him and she smiles.

"Hi," she whispers.

"Hi," he smiles.

The world is righted again. It spins once more and time moves on and everything is okay.

But then the pain hits her like a lightning bolt. It has the memories flooding back and her shooting up out of her bed, gasping for air.

"Hey, hey, hey," Dan soothes, catching her shoulders and gently guiding her back against the pillows behind her. "It's okay. You're okay." He gingerly places himself on her bed, but doesn't let her go.

"Chuck?" she asks through breaths.

"The doctors are with him now. I'm not sure…"

Before she can even process that, she remembers the other life that was with them in the car and her hand flies to her stomach. "The baby?" she cries desperately.

"They didn't say. I'll buzz for the nurse." He hits the buzzer tucked into bed and calls for the nurse.

The nurse comes and promises to be back with the doctor and an ultrasound machine. The minutes that tick by until their arrival are excruciatingly painful.

"Stay with me?" Blair begs, clinging to his hand. Her eyes are wide and wild – panicked.

"Always," he promises.

They both jump when the door to her room opens again, but it is not the doctor. It is Louis.

"I've got it from here," he says gruffly.

Dan reluctantly lets go of her hand when Louis takes his place beside Blair.

-x-

The next day he comes to see her, hydrangeas in hand, but she is already gone.

-x-

He is not surprised when she shows up in Brooklyn an entire week later.

"I lost the baby," she confesses as soon as he pulls open the door. That's Blair – straight to the point and no false pretenses.

"I'm sorry," he manages to stutter out as he's pulling her into his arms.

But she pushes away from him and sweeps her way into the apartment. "I found out that day in the hospital," she tells him matter-of-factly. "There wasn't a heartbeat."

"Why didn't you tell me?" he searches carefully.

"I couldn't tell you," she whispers, head cast down. "I was so ashamed."

"Blair." He closes the distance between them and cups her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his. "You have nothing to be ashamed of."

"Of course I do!" she cries. "I keep doing all the wrong things and making all the wrong choices and this is what it cost me. I deserve this."

"You don't," he tells her with conviction, his eyes locked with hers and his hand against her cheek. "You _don't_."

Then she breaks down into sobs and all he can do is hold her tightly against his chest while she's choking out, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over.

-x-

Blair ignores him for another week after that afternoon.

(He bought her gourmet pizza. And watched Breakfast at Tiffany's with her for the one-thousandth time.

When they are searching for cat in the rain, Blair says, "I think I would have named her Holly. Or maybe Audrey." But she says it so quietly, without taking her eyes off the screen, he's believes she might not have said anything at all.

But then she looks over at him and says with a smile, "it was a girl. I just know it."

He grasps her hand and squeezes, saying, "Holly would have been nice.")

After countless hours spent waiting for her to show up in Brooklyn again, he treks across the bridge to Manhattan.

The Waldorf residence is a flurry of activity when he steps off the elevator. There are people buzzing everywhere with arms full of flowers and seas of fabric. He overhears Eleanor talking about seating arrangements as he makes his way up the steps to Blair's room.

"So you're really going through with it?" Dan asks from the doorway, finding Blair curled up in bed with a book (a tattered copy of _The House of Mirth_).

She sets the book across her lap and smiles. "I was wondering when you were going to show up, Humphrey."

"Here I am." He crosses the room and perches himself on the side of her bed. "You're going to marry Louis?"

"Yes," she sighs, unable to meet his eyes.

"Even after everything?"

"_Especially_ after everything!" she hisses, eyes snapping back to his. They are narrowed and dark – angry, but he knows it is not him she's angry with.

"Blair…"

"I lost our baby. Because I chose to run away with Chuck. Chuck almost died and I did this and… I don't think I need a better sign telling me I made the wrong choice. I owe him this much."

"You don't owe him anything."

Blair laughs, but it is breathy and bitter. She picks up the book in her lap and flicks through the pages. "I love this book," she says absently. "I love Lily, but she's so stupid. She's always on the verge of having everything she wants, but then she ruins it. Over and over again. Until she has nothing."

"That's never going to be you, Blair."

"Isn't it already? I keep ruining everything. I almost lost it all, but I refuse to make the same mistake twice."

"Even if you're not happy?"

She shrugs. "It's better than having nothing at all. It's a small price to pay."

She looks so broken sitting there in her big bed with a frayed book in her hands and a dark curtain of hair falling around her face. He wants to take her by the shoulders and shake some sense into – shake some life and some of that fighting Blair Waldorf spirit into her.

Instead he gets up, unable to look at this girl who only seems a shadow of herself, and makes his way to the door. He pauses just before he leaves and says quietly, "You'll always have me."

-x-

He is surprised when Louis asks him to write his vows for the wedding. And he is enraged that this is the man who Blair is about to marry. A man who doesn't have it within him to pen a few lines about what she means to him and what he's willing to give her.

He's prepared to tell Louis no; to tell him how outrageous it is that he'd even ask. But then he remembers that he has more than a few lines about Blair Waldorf within him. He's got novels full of words just for her.

Dan realizes he can write the words – he can tell her absolutely everything that's been building inside of him since he met her – he just won't be the one saying them.

And that has to be good enough.

He tells Louis yes, because it's all he has left.

-x-

Dan stares at a blank sheet of paper for two days.

There's a million things he'd like to say to Blair Waldorf. Yet he can't convince any of those words to transfer onto the paper to be read by another man.

It's late in the afternoon when he grows tired of trying to write vows for another man. He's restless and hopeless and all he can do is dial Blair's number and say, "I need to see you."

She must hear the desperation in his voice, because she doesn't even pause before she rattles off her coordinates and tells him she'll still be there when he gets there.

So, he quickly pulls on his coat and leaves the paper sitting blankly on his desk.

There's a lot of things he'd like to say to Blair Waldorf and as he's rushing out the door on his way to Manhattan, Dan is determined to say them to her face.

-x-

Within the hour, Dan finds himself walking into Vera Wang. He's trying to explain to the expressionless girl he finds sitting inside what he's doing there and he's just about to turn around and leave when he hears Blair call out, "Back here, Humphrey."

He finds her on a pedestal dressed in white.

It robs him of his breath when she turns, her hair in waves around her shoulders, and she smiles at him.

"Wow," he murmurs, unable to help himself.

Blair smiles nervously smoothing the fabric of the dress around her hips. "A dress fit for a princess?"

All he can do is nod, swallowing thickly.

She turns back to the face the mirror again, studying the details of the dress.

"Where have you been? I've tried calling you."

"I've, uh, been writing. Or trying to anyway. I've had a bad case of writer's block."

"Is that why you called me?" She looks over her shoulder, smirking, "Needed a muse again?" Her tone is playful and light. He thinks this is the happiest he's seen her in a month.

"Something like that."

Dan watches Blair watch herself in the mirror. He sees her brow furrow when she spots an imperfection in the dress (or her own body) and the way she allows a smile to grace her lips when she's pleased with some little detail. When she's finally done, she turns to him and extends her hand.

"Help me down?"

His hand closes around hers and he helps her off her pedestal, the white fabric of the dress swishing around them

"Was there something you wanted to tell me?" Blair asks.

His hand slips away from hers. Everything he had been rehearsing to say to her – every confession and promise – is gone now. The white dress has made his mind go blank.

He can't take this away from her.

"No. Nothing important, anyway. I think I just missed you… harassing me."

Blair smiles. A dazzling smile and she even laughs. He thinks she poised and ready to make fun of him – deal out some witty comeback or snide remark about Brooklyn – but she doesn't. Instead she says, "Wait for me to take this off. You can come with me to the florist."

When he gets home that night, after spending the day traipsing all over the city with Blair (and being forced to buy her dinner) he writes out the vows Louis will say on his wedding day.

It's his wedding gift to her: these words he'll never be able to say.

-x-

The weather in the city is dipping lower with each passing day that leads up to her wedding. Some are calling for flurries on Saturday while some are making grand proclamations of it being the coldest day in January on the books.

It doesn't really phase Blair. She's in control of absolutely every aspect of her wedding, so she doesn't really bother with trying to control the weather, too.

On a bitterly cold day, two days before the wedding, Blair finds herself in Brooklyn. Dan kept mentioning this first edition copy of his favorite Kerouac they spotted running wedding-related errands, so she thinks getting it for him would be the proper thank you for helping. She wraps it up with a gold bow and hand delivers it to the loft.

When she flutters into his apartment, hands waving, her mouth moving a mile-a-minute about something-or-other that's wrong with Brooklyn and how on earth she thought she had the time to come here while she's planning a royal wedding that must rival Kate's, Dan pops off the couch and just laughs, "Hi Blair" and it's enough to shut her up.

"This is for you," she says, pushing the perfectly wrapped package into his hands.

"Shouldn't I be getting you the gifts?"

She glares at him before rolling her eyes. "It's a thank you. Just open it."

So he does. And he even gasps quietly when he reveals the tattered book beneath the shiny paper. "I can't believe you did this."

"You've been a good friend, Humphrey. The best friend, really. Ever since I…" she trails off, her eyes snapping away from his, unable to say the words aloud again. "Anyways," she says with a wave of her hand, "it's the least I could do."

"Thank you."

She smiles. "You're welcome. Now, I must get back to the city. I'm running late for an appointment." She pauses, just for a second, to watch him turn the book over in his hands and she revels in the look of delight and surprise on his face.

Just as Blair's about to march right out of the loft (Dan thinks he might be the last time she ever sets foot there. In two days she'll be a princess and princesses don't have much use for Brooklyn. Or Humphreys) Dan calls out, "Blair, wait!"

She stops, hand on the doorknob, and looks back at him. "Yes?"

"I don't think you should marry Louis."

He says it before he can even think to stop the words from coming. He regrets them as soon as her hand falls away from the handle and her mouth is forming into a little "o" of shock.

"What?" she gasps.

Dan takes two steps towards her. Closer, but there is still a gap and she is out of his reach. "Don't marry him."

"How can you say this? There are two days before my wedding. I don't understand…"

"Blair," he sighs.

"Is this because of Chuck?"

"No! No it's not because of Chuck. It's because…"

"Because what?" she searches, but when his eyes meet hers and he's taking another step closer to her (close enough now that if he did reach out to her, he'd be able to take hold of her) she decides she doesn't want to know (even though she might already have her answer).

"I'm getting married on Saturday," she tells him firmly. "I'm sorry."

And then she's gone.

-x-


	2. Chapter 2

Here's the second and final installment. Enjoy!

-x-

The night before her wedding, Blair is all gracious smiles and lingering hugs. All of those closest to her and her groom have gathered at the penthouse for dinner. She spends most of her time seeking out her friends and resting her cheeks that are sore from smiling at Louis' friends and family.

After dinner is over and people are mingling with glasses of champagne in hand, Blair becomes acutely aware of one person's absence. She searches the throngs of people for him, but keeps coming up empty.

She sidles up to Serena and asks as casually as she can muster since it is Serena, "Have you seen Dan? He RSVP'd."

"Oh yeah. He told Rufus he wasn't coming."

"Oh," Blair says tightly. "How incredibly rude."

"He mentioned something about not feeling well. But we both know that's a lie." Serena tips back the rest of her champagne and waltzes away. Leaving Blair staring quizzically after her until someone else glides up to her and is pressing kisses to her cheeks and forcing her lips upwards into another smile.

Late into the night, mere hours before her scheduled walk down the aisle, Blair can't sleep.

She calls Dan and the phone rings six times before he finally answers with a sleepy, "Hello?"

"You're coming tomorrow, right?" she screeches into the phone. "I know you're not big on social graces, Humphrey, but you did RSVP and it would be incredibly rude to not show up now. Especially to such an auspicious occasion."

"Blair…"

But she cuts him off before he can give her an excuse. "It's not just the etiquette you're disobeying, it's the fact that we're friends and friends show up to their friend's weddings."

"I can't, Blair. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," she whispers before hanging up and crawling back to bed, where sleep finally claims her just as the sun is beginning to rise above the city.

-x-

As predicted, it's one of the coldest January days on record.

But the heat inside of the bridal suite is cranked up as high as it will go, so Blair is all rosy cheeks and warm fingers as she slips into her wedding gown. She is all silk and lace and lovey.

She feels as though she's playing dress up, especially when her mother places her tiara on top of her head. She catches sight of herself in the mirror and can barely believe it's her looking back.

Blair dismisses everyone from the room just before the ceremony is scheduled to start. A moment for quiet reflection.

This is the first day of the rest of her life and she tries to psych herself up to be happier about her life beginning and getting the right ending to her fairy tale.

This is the happily ever after she has dreamt of since she was a little girl. The happily ever after she deserves. She tries to mimic the smiles of all the leading ladies she's seen as they get their prince charming in the end of the stories, but her smile never seems to reach her eyes.

She's nearly convinced herself she's as happy as she should be when Chuck barges into the room and is telling her he loves her and begging her not marry the prince.

"He won't make you happy," he tells her sharply in his closing argument.

"But neither will you," she tells him sadly, wistfully.

He tells her she'll regret this before he stomps out and she thinks he might be right, but before she can gather up the courage to convince herself otherwise, Serena's there and telling her it's time.

-x-

The music is playing and the ceremony is beginning. Blair can smell the roses from where she waits with Serena, her father and step-dad.

Serena is bright and bubbly and happy. She's gushing over something, but Blair can't really hear. She feels faint from the warmth of the church and the smell of the flowers and the strains of the music (she hates this song they're playing).

"Did you see Dan?" Blair asks her suddenly and she thinks she may have cut Serena off (or she's just taken aback by her recent desire to know Dan Humphrey's whereabouts) because her smiles falls and her brows knit together.

"He's not coming. He was leaving to go to California for his book tour."

Blair thinks she might have actually fainted, because suddenly Serena is gone and she's walking down the aisle towards Louis and she doesn't know how she got here. The only thing keeping her upright is the two men on either side of her.

She has to remind herself to smile graciously as she walks to her future, but she only feels as though she's going through the motions as she kisses her dads and takes Louis' hands and half-heartedly listens as the minster begins the ceremony.

But then it's time for the vows and she comes back to herself. This is the part, she thinks, that will make all the rest go away. She'll hear his promises and know he's the one she's supposed to be here with.

Louis goes first, his voice loud and clear as he grasps her hands and looks into her eyes, no false pretenses and no second guesses.

"Here we are," he begins. "And there's some things I'd like to tell you. I think you're insufferable. Your desire to always be right and to rule the world drive me crazy. But they also make me respect and admire you – wholly and completely. That's one thing I promise you today, to always respect and admire you. You have been through so much, but you always handle it with such grace and dignity. I promise to learn from you and live my life with grace. We may not always agree on everything. We may fight and we may stumble. But, I am going to do everything in my power to make you as happy as you deserve to be. Today, and every day after this one, I promise you, above everything else, that you will always have me. I love you, Blair."

"Wait. What did you say?" Blair asks in a whisper. There is a spark of familiarity in his words, but she can't exactly place them without hearing Louis repeat them.

"I love you?"

"No. Before that."

"You will always have me."

She's heard those words strung together in just that way before. The other day and months ago when she was crying on a sofa in Brooklyn. But she has never heard them from Louis. She's never heard words quite so pretty from Louis (pretty promises and pretty, sparkly things – yes, but never pretty words. Not like these).

Blair's hands slip away from Louis'.

"Blair?" he questions.

"Did you write these yourself?"

His eyes widen and he's shaking his head in confusion, but not saying the words to deny anything. She has her answer.

"Who wrote them?"

Louis is reaching for her hands, glancing nervously at the congregation and the minister, but she takes a step back.

He doesn't need to say. She already knows.

And the realization hits her right in the heart. Makes it boom against her ribs in the most dizzying way and before she can really think what it means, she's hiking up her dress and running down the aisle alone.

She catches sight of Rufus and pauses only to grab his arm and demand, "Where is he?" breathlessly.

"JFK," he smirks and laughs when she takes off running again.

-x-

Her wedding dress is heavy and her shoes are impossibly high. But Blair never thought she'd be running when she slipped on those pretty white things this morning.

Yet, here she is, running through the airport, with fistfuls of her dress in her hands and balancing on her not-so-white-anymore wedding shoes.

She ignores the stares from the people surrounding her, so intent on finding the one person she's come all this way for. But after searching for nearly twenty minutes, she's losing hope and ready to concede defeat. Just go back to her wedding, marry Louis in her now-dirty dress and forget his words were not his own.

That's when she sees him.

"Humphrey!" she shouts in relief (and triumph).

He doesn't see her yet, but she can't help but smile the way his eyes narrow at the sound of her voice and he looks around as though he might have heard her, but can't really believe that he did.

Blair makes her to way him and then he finally sees her. His mouth falls open in shock at the sight of her, but he also can't help but laugh at the picture she makes – wind-blown hair and a wrinkled wedding dress charging at him through the throngs of passengers.

"I know you have a flair for the dramatics, but even this is over the top for you," Dan laughs when she's finally before him.

She rolls her eyes, smoothing her hands over the wrinkles of her dress in vain.

They stand there together - unmoving while the rest of the world moves around them.

Until Dan can't take her silence any longer. "So…"

"So…"

"What are you doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Uh. No. Not exactly. Shouldn't you be getting married right now?"

"I was. I mean, I am. But you ruined everything!"

"Me?" he snorts. "I wasn't even there."

"Exactly!"

"I know you hate when people defy the rules of etiquette, but even Blair Waldorf can't be running around the world collecting her wedding guests. Even if…"

"You wrote them, didn't you?" she charges, cutting him off.

"What?"

"Louis' vows. You wrote them. I know it was you."

He lets out a breath, conceding defeat. He's much too tired for a fight. "Yeah. I did."

Blair takes a cautious step closer to him. "Did you mean them?"

Dan runs a hand over his face and laughs uncomfortably. "Come on, Blair…"

Another step closer. "Did you mean them?" she asks more forcefully, holding his gaze.

"Yes. I meant every word."

Blair is bowled over by this knowledge. It's not all that shocking of an admission, considering she did run all the way here just to confirm her suspicion. But the weight of it, coupled with her heavy dress and her high shoes, makes her lose her balance and she's clinging to Dan to stay upright.

"Why didn't you just tell me yourself?"

"How could I take this away from you?" With one hand clutching her arm to keep her steady, he raises the other to whisper his fingers along the line of her cheek. He's never touched Blair freely, not like this, so he lingers against the feel of her skin. "I love you enough to let you go."

Dan drops his hand and releases her, certain she's able to stand alone once more.

"Dan, I…"

"I know you don't love me back. But I'm so hopelessly, stupidly in love with you that it's okay. So, go back to the city. Go get married or go be with Chuck. Or maybe be alone. Neither of them really deserve you. I've got a flight to catch."

He presses a fleeting kiss to her cheek, before he collects his bags and turns to leave her standing there in the middle of the airport in her wedding dress. Alone.

"What if I don't want to do any of those things?" she asks petulantly.

Dan stops, but doesn't turn back to her.

"What if I want the one person _I_ don't deserve?"

He remains frozen in his spot – not moving forward and not going back. Stuck.

He hears the rustling of her dress and the click of her shoes against the floor. He knows she's close, but doesn't realize how close until he feels her breath against his neck and her hand lightly on his shoulder.

"I've been a fool," she says softly. "Not seeing it until now. Not knowing, or understanding how you felt. It's just… no one's ever loved me like this before."

Dan turns and she's in his arms now, just a breath away. "Like how?"

"Selflessly," she says on a sigh.

Then they're falling into each other. Not going backwards or forwards, but an entirely different direction than either expected.

Dan's mouth closes over hers to catch the end of her sigh. His hands frame the sides of her face and she clutches at his shirt. They hold each other as they fall further and further.

This kiss isn't a careful test. It's not a simple press of their lips together. It's much, much more. It's a powerful give and take, push and pull. It is the culmination of everything they are together exploding into one kiss in the middle of the airport.

When they finally pull apart, their lungs screaming, their eyes meet and they laugh. It's quiet and giddy and full of the lightness they both feel (despite being weighed down by a heavy wedding dress and suitcases).

Blair sighs, happily this time, not sadly like before, as she rests her forehead against Dan's. His hand skims the silk of her dress and pulls her even closer.

"I think it's safe to say I missed my flight," Dan says finally.

They pull apart and find that they've amassed a crowd around them. They make quite the pair – a runaway bride standing in the arms of a runaway boy.

"Let's get out of here," he says holding out his hand to her.

Without hesitation, she places her hand in his. "Where to?" she asks.

"Anywhere_._"

Blair smiles deliriously, her fingers interlacing with his, and adds breathlessly, "_Everywhere_."

And away they go.


End file.
